Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) is a teenager living in California. Driving through the desert one night, on her way home from shopping, something runs onto the road. She stops. In front of her car is a giant caveman (Richard Kiel). She faints. When she comes to the cave man is still there. He appears fascinated with both the car and with Roxy. When he tries to remove her from the car the horn beeps. The caveman is startled. He runs away as another car comes up. Roxy’s boyfriend Tom (Arch Hall Sr.) is in the car that pulls up. She tries to tell him about the giant she almost hit. He, of course, doesn’t believe her but he sees she is scared about something.
At dinner that night she tells her father (Arch Hall Sr.) about the giant. He is also skeptical. The next day they go out to where she says the event happened. At first there is nothing to see except desert. Then Tom sees a huge footprint in the dirt. Mr. Miller now believes that there is a giant out in the desert. Miller writes adventure books. He feels that this creature could be the makings of his next book, provided he can get a picture of it. Robert Miller has a helicopter drop him out into the desert the next day so he can search for the caveman. When there is a problem with the helicopter that is scheduled to pick him up, Roxy and Tom take his dune buggy out to the rendezvous location. When Miller doesn’t show up at the scheduled pick-up time Roxy is worried.
While Tom goes searching for Miller, Roxy is kidnapped by the caveman. Roxy is reunited with her father. Earlier he had fallen and gotten hurt. The caveman brought him to his cave as well. Miller has begun trying to communicate with the giant. All they can do now is bide their time until they can either make their escape or be rescued.
“Eegah” was released in 1962 and was produced and directed by Nicholas Merriwether (Arch Hall Sr.). Part caveman movie, part musical.
There’s a lot of hair in this movie. And I don’t mean on Eegah. Between Roxy’s teased poof and Tom’s pompadour there’s more fur than on a gorilla suit. Unfortunately, there’s a whole lot a nothing else going on.
As for acting, the best performance is done by Richard Kiel, and he doesn’t speak. I’m not sure he even moves his mouth. All the grunts, groans and Eegahs are dubbed. And they are annoying. As for plot, caveman meets girl, caveman loses girl, caveman just loses. It’s never explained where he came from or how he managed to live as long as he has. I can guarantee it has nothing to do with sulfur water. My water has a high sulfur content, and I don’t look any better.
“Eegah” is probably the worst movie everybody’s ever seen. And probably the worst movie everyone has in their collection. If you have any old movie compellations, then you probably have this one in there too. Possibly more than one copy. Not only is it a bad movie, it’s a boring movie. So why does everyone have it? It’s free. “Eegah” has been in the realm of public domain for quite some time now. It’s been duped and copied until the color has been washed out to the point where you’re not sure if it’s a color movie or black and white.
For those diehard fans that have an unsanctioned love for this piece of nonsense there is something to get their hearts aflutter. A company called Film Detective has restored “Eegah”. Why? “Eegah” may be a bad movie, but it does have a fan base. Even if it didn’t, the movie represents a period in time where bad actors and bad writers and bad directors could produce bad movies and people watched them. Teenagers watched them. Some even liked them. Believe it or not, “Eegah” has historical significance. Like the caveman himself, the movie is a part of film history, and part of a generation that grew up on bad movies and cheese burgers.
Movie
MST3K Version